In this book … Already, three words into my review, this most straightforward way of beginning seems inaccurate, ham-fisted. Is this a book? Verdant Inferno/A Scabby Black Brazilian is published by Urbanomic, whose stated aim is “to act as an advocate for philosophical thinking as a creative practice”. It is among the first titles in a new series, K-Pulp Switch, which borrows the format and the look of the popular Ace Doubles books, launched in 1952, in which two works would be published together, back-to-back and top-to-toe, so that the reader could hold the volume either way up. These two titles are published in this same format, with a pleasingly lurid cover design that recalls the garish frontispieces of the sci-fi and western novels that made up the original series, by authors including Philip K Dick and Ursula K Le Guin.
